Healthy, Happy Families

Positive Parenting Skills To Promote Children's Healthy Eating Habits

My child doesn't want to eat dinner but then gets hungry later. What do I do?

My child wants to eat snacks instead of meals. What do I do?

I've heard family meals are good but we're just too busy.

All parents want to do what is best for their children. But doing what is best is not always easy. As parents learn new ways to keep children healthy it can be challenging to make those changes in their own families. The Healthy, Happy Families site is designed to support educators as they help parents make changes. Topics cover issues parents face when getting their kids to eat healthy, and includes information about how children develop and the role parents play in that process.

The research-based information presented is relevant for nutrition educators and family support professionals seeking general knowledge to support parents of children ages 2 through 12 in making healthy changes to the dietary environments of their families.

Each topic area includes:

General research-based information on relevant areas of child development and parent-child relationships

How the information can be applied to child feeding

Tips on parent behaviors that can facilitate the healthy behavior

Resource links

Click on the topics to the left to start learning!

While the content on this site is helpful to anyone teaching these concepts, it is designed to be coupled with the Healthy, Happy Families program materials.

Nutrition Educator Training Introduction

The Healthy, Happy Families training is designed to help nutrition educators become more familiar with the concepts surrounding child feeding. Parents are often stumped by how to help their children develop positive eating habits. If you have spent time around young children, this is a battle that has undoubtedly come up. Some of these concepts can be vague on paper. To help you further understand the application of them, we will interweave concrete examples after each section with some questions so that you can gauge your understanding of how these materials apply to real world situations.